This is not that. I think that I'm throwing, but I'm thrown.

Title today comes from a woman I once thought I would marry, and the story is pretty much about her too. Click on the title, lyrics from Stay (I Miss You) by Lisa Loeb to see her website. I suggest going there now, so the audio from her site can be playing while you read this story, but do what you want.

I was at Lilith Fair, because I've noticed I'm around lesbians a lot, and because Jewel AND Lisa Loeb were appearing-two women who at the time were high on my list of future wives, but have fallen far since, as well as Emmylou Harris, The Indigo Girls, and Sarah McLachlan. (all great musicians, but not my type-and in a couple cases I'm not theirs!)

It isn't important who I was with. Let's put it this way I haven't spoken to any of the four of them in six years. But there were three guys and two girls and all three of us were trying to date the one girl, even though in retrospect the other girl was much cooler. It doesn't matter, because on that day I only lusted after one woman. (at a time-depending upon who was on stage)

Lisa Loeb was either first or follwed someone I don't remember now. She played a great little seven song set ending with her one hit to date at the time (and still) Stay (I Miss You). You may remember this song from the Reality Bites soundtrack or you may be too old to have seen that movie or too young to have cared.

Lisa is famous for wearing these sexy little glasses in front of her eyes, and looks kind of like the smartest supermodel or the sexiest librarian ever!

At the end of her set the PA announcer told us that Lisa would be signing autographs and gave us directions there. Without saying anything to my companions I ran from my lawn seat around the corner. I was at the top of a hill and the booth she was to be in was at the bottom. A massive line of quicker stalkers and agile would be lovers of Lisa had already formed and as Emmylou Harris was next, and I'd been the only one in my party who knew who she was I decided not to get in line.

But just as I turned around Lisa was headed right toward me on the passenger seat of a golf cart coming from the back of the stage. The cart was moving slow and I thought I could take the guy driving it, gun it, and drive away with Lisa, but instead I just put my hand out for a shake.

They came by slowly and seemed to almost stop, as they may have, because I'm kind of a human roadblock. Lisa was smiling through her cute glasses and I noticed she had beautifully full lips and perfect hair-which I never notice about anyone-and then she reached out her lovely hand and grabbed mine. I squeezed gently. Her hand was above mine, it was more of how a man offers his hand to a woman to dance than a handsake and if I had any guts I'd have kissed it though I'm certain I'd have been in deep for that. She was staring right at me and I said, "Great set." She smiled and this smile was worth whatever they'd have done to me if I kissed her, and said "thanks" and drove off.

I stood entranced, as I've only been on two other occasions. It was like a Dreamweaver moment from Wayne's World only the music was better. I watched as she climbed out of the cart and began to sign autographs. Now what happens next is perhaps the part of the story many of you will think I'm an idiot for. As soon as she had begun, she was finished. Now in truth, at least five songs were sung on stage while I stood and watched her sign autographs, and the entire line met her while I stared, but in my head this was the same second as when she sat down. They were just simply one moment. One dreamweaver of a moment where I fell in love from one touch and an extended look. And then, just as sweetly as she had arrived to the booth she climbed back into the cart and they drove off. I almost turned away to head back to my seat, but then I saw the driver make a U-turn and head back up the hill to me.

This time I know they stopped, she was almost giggling. I stood in the exact same spot I had been in, with the exact same expression on my face, and held out the same hand. This time she took it and held it, like one might do when talking to a good friend, she looked at me both impressed and disturbed and asked, "Weren't you standing here a while ago?"

Now, many answers rushed through my mind, from lies to half-truths, to pickup lines, to some backstory forming about a heart condition and how I had to take it easy which I thought might have gotten me a seat next to her in the cart and maybe even a visit backstage, but all that came out was the truth. "After you touched me I couldn't move." I said. She smiled now bigger than ever, worth the price of admission plus a million dollars, and adorably said, "That's sweet!"

This is the moment when I realized how pathetic what I'd said was. I couldn't move? What kind of lowly poor excuse for a lover was I? (for that's where my head had placed the stakes of my words)Like anything I could have said was that magical. She squeezed my hand, and turned forward, which is when I let go and the driver pressed the gas. I watched as as she headed backstage, looked around a minute or two at the folks watching me, and headed back to my seat.

I have only been entranced on two other occasions. How I wish that I could tell you my words then were legendary. How I wish I could tell you that they opened doors into physical and spiritual paradises. They pretty much both ended up this way-with me alone headed back to my seat.

I heard Stay (I Miss You) today and I just couldn't help but remebering this story. Perhaps we all have one entrancement that lasts forever, but I've fallen in love at least three times. Once all she did was touch my hand.

I want to break on down, but I can't stop now.

Title today is from a Jack Johnson song called Breakdown. Check him out by clicking on the title.

I have been having an internally tortuous time lately. At a spiritual/professional/emotional crossroad that I am torn over within myself. So fire away some prayers and positive thoughts for me that I'll find my place in coming days. In the meantime, here's a first take poetic attempt at dealing with it.

Back Wheels Spinning
By J.D. Rose

A man who doesn’t believe
goodbyes should be spoken
has nothing left
to say. I’ve poured out all of myself
that I could lose and what has grown
from my giving is something
more beautiful to me than anything else I have
delivered to this cold, flat world.

And while going is all my instincts
can echo, my heart is shouting
to stay. My heart is singing
the chorus of the song we have been writing together,
here in this strange place
where truth is the last factor considered
and love is never mentioned,
though it is all I have taught

I have always told my children
that they must be true to themselves,
but I keep finding this bigger purpose
born of my temporary unhappiness. Soon
I can gather what it is I have left of myself
to head west like explorers before me and there
search for truth and love once more, but can I
survive these last days out of place and under siege?

Perhaps I can show those that surround
our tribe we have built that love always wins,
there are no divisions in God…or at least hang on
long enough that my beloveds understand sacrifice
is love in its highest form. Listen to my Jesus complex
guiding my gut to where my heart wants to be.
I can’t give up yet, or at least my spirit
hasn’t been able to decide if part of me can be
detached while the rest of me is entrenched.

For now I remain,
divided over my commitment, confident in my calling.

I'm a doubting Thomas. I took a promise but I do not feel safe. Oh me of little faith...

Lyrics/Title today comes from Nickel Creek a folk/new/bluegrass band that you should all check out. Their newest album has a song I'm sure I'll put on this year's camp CD called Doubting Thomas-here's the chorus. Been living these words the last few days. Click the title to see their website.

I've written three different versions of a resignation letter in the last five months. Goodbyes are not something I tend to look forward to when all parties don't understand why it's being said. For me, it has become clear that soon there won't be any denying who/what I am, and that once I'm revealed I'll have enemies sitting where my party guests were.
Damn, what a poetic/dramatic way of saying what I'm going through.

I LOVE DRAMA!

There how's that for a previous post plug.

The truth is I suffer from a disease passed down through my father, both grandfathers, and probably other branches of my family tree going up-I always know what I should do. I have a deep sense of right and wrong, a mature cultivation of what wrong I'm willing to live with committing, a clear logic, and best and worst of all inherently accurate instincts-my gut is seldom wrong. When judging people, situations, pending consequences, or choices of which path to take my gut tends to be right a staggeringly high percentage of experiences.

I am cursed also in a new way that Dad and the Grandpas didn't think of, I have a deep sense of call, and not just a sense of purpose which I believe those men certainly had, but a belief that God (whatever he turns out to be!) has appointed certain things to me to take care of. For the last four years and one month he has wanted me in Bluffton, Indiana-a choice I would not have made for myself! Before that he needed me in a church on Michigan Street in Evansville. Before that I was a drunken college kid denying what my heart was saying and my gut knew was the right path for me.

This crisis isn't that I don't know what to do...

I know. I just don't think it's the best thing for the people in this situation I love. For the first time since SHE wounded my heart, I am torn between knowing the right path and believing I can overcome all the obstacles by choosing love.

Do I now choose that which I was called to do? Do I choose that which I am called to? Do I choose that which is best for me? Best for others? Do I do what I think God would want done or what God wants done with my life? What if they are different?

In all scenarios I can look at this time and be proud, moved, amazed, awed, assured that I was right in coming and God came with me...but it's fast becoming clear that I have built a temple that would stand before all men as a symbol of God's love-that I am holding up with my own faith. It will crumble the second I step away from it!

I know what I should do.

I know what I will do.

For the first time in a long time I know they aren't the same thing.

I am mourning my own loss of faith in my gut, in my unflinching desire to do what God wants, and in the tradition of right choices I carry with me.

But the temple may stand for a little while longer...

Don't Stop Believin'!

I couldn't allow myself to link where these lyrics come from. Suffice it to say that Steve Perry has become a masscot of the White Sox as of late and Journey's anti-classic Don't Stop Believin' a theme song of the team. So while I withhold my endorsement of this song and band I highly encourage you to click on this title to go to a very cool website!!!

THE CHICAGO WHITE SOX ARE WORLD SERIES CHAMPS!!!

I have very little to say. I watched the game in my church's theatre room, ate some Ruffles potato chips, and some Prairie Farms french onion dip-all while watching my team sweep the world series. It isn't every day that your team wins the big one. In my lifetime the Greenbay Packers have won one Superbowl and the Indiana Hoosiers have won two basketball championships (when I was in grade school). I cheer for the Big Ten in general in college football (except Ohio State and Michigan and Purdue) so that isn't exactly a prime spot for picking up trophies. Who the hell watches hockey? Soccer? Golf is boring. The NBA hasn't been fun to watch since Jordan left the first time and I'm kind of a closet Boston Celtic fan (mostly because my pseudo-spouse Thompson is a Laker fan), but really don't watch any of it. This leaves major league baseball, and with me since I was eight or so there has been only one team of interest-the often obscure, lowly, second fiddle to perpetual hype pushers from the northside, team of Thomas and...Bo Jackson...and Jordan while he was dicking around, the Chicago White Sox. Grand Total there have been four major championships won by teams that I really care about in my lifetime. This one was awfully sweet, mostly because it was so surprising. I hope you all get to experience your team winning the big game, if for no other reason that you get to feel like a part of something successful for five seconds while you eat your fatty snack and sack out. There are loftier reasons we root for sports teams. Sometimes we see ourselves in their style. Often it is an escape from our daily grind. For me, right this minute, it is mostly about a sense of fulfillment-I have not wasted my time cheering for these guys. If you've never experienced it? Stop cheering for the Cubs-or just hang in there-your day is coming.

It's the little things that seem to be saving me today.

Song lyric/title today comes from my future wife Mindy Smith. This is from a song called Down in Flames. Camp kids will remember her from her song Come to Jesus. Click the title to see her website.

I believe man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
William Faulkner in his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

As I've looked upon the news coverage and still photos in papers and magazines these last few weeks since Katrina (then Rita and now Wilma) I've thought a lot about how much two images seemed to burnt into my mind.

The first one is the most accessible and seems to be what I retain visually of all tragedy-I can see the World Trade Center towers falling, I can see the Challenger exploding, I can see JFK getting shot although my father was nine at the time. This image is of wreckage and destruction, of people crying and children afraid. It is an image of looters, armed men and women defending their broken homes, and bodies floating in polluted water.

The second image is the antithesis of the first. I have this very real image of boats coming to the rescue of stranded survivors, Red Cross workers delivering meals, young men helping old men into rafts, and old women holding young girls as they stand beyond ruined neighborhoods. WHen I think about it I have this image too for each tragedy-firefighters standing in front of the flag at Ground Zero, the Chellnger crew striding out to meet their mission, little John saluting his fallen father in the flag drapeed coffin.

I keep coming to this moment in life where I've almost convinced myself that the world is chaos and we cannot ever hope to overcome it. Then I see something beautiful and compassionate and I see someone sacrifice some of theirself for others. Then I go the other way and I begin to see nothing but man's potential to be good and do good and care for one another. This is usually followed by the story of a church member being held at gun point or the glorified airing of a serial killer's trial. And who the hell is Nancy Grace? What has she ever done? I digress...

Last Monday Rosa Parks passed away. I always think when we lose people like that, that my generation doesn't seem real capable of producing such heroes. I hope I'm wrong, I've spent years working in Youth Ministry to make sure I am. Here's a woman that did a little thing. She didn't give up her seat. Now the truth is she was tired, had worked all day. Her feet hurt. She didn't get up as much because she didn't feel like it as because she shouldn't have had to. What followed was a beautiful painful movement to fulfill the freedom's this country promises all.

I keep wondering what that image was like-a black woman in Montgomery, Alabama staying seated on the bus. And what is the opposite image-a german shephard attacking an unarmed protestor? The images continue. A black man beaten in New Orleans by three cops-a woman and her daughter being brought to Northern Indiana to live on given dimes and donated possesions in the wake of Katrina. All around us are both sides of our potential to be monsters and saints.

And that is where we come to the moment where who Jesus was/is is of great importance to the conversation. Here is a man that took the most tragic instances and made them beautiful. Not enough wine to celebrate?-miracle. Not enough food to share?-miracle. Brother dead? Daughter dead? Mother dying?-miracle-miracle-miracle. Crucified teacher? Executed king? Savior overcome? Hope lost?-miracle-miracle-miracle-miracle. I know many people have a hard time believing the miracles of Jesus, which lead them to question whether he existed at all, but here's what I would say.

A man lived named Jesus. His life was recorded and I'll bet exaggerated, but in all stories there is some truth. Part of Jesus' truth is that he came to offer us a way to look at the world that did not remove the sadder images, but transformed them. All death is just a new beginning, all suffering the price of freedom, all love the gift of life (even when it hurts). Throw out the miracles and Jesus is still a pretty miraculous character.

Now look at your life. Are there some beautiful images? Rejoice in them. Are there some sad ones? Write them down. Now put a line through every one that affects your soul ( I define soul as the part of you that is forver!). How many do you have left? If it's one or more you are either lying or need to go see a clergyman right away. Earthly struggles pass. We need heroes, willing to stick up for what is right. But the justice of Earth passes to. Do I kow what awaits us? Absolutely not. But here's betting Rosa has a seat there.

You have a soul that will last forever. Fill it with love and beauty. You have a life that may end tommorrow. Be heroic whenever possible. Balance your sadness with hope. Never give up on yourself or our shared potential to be better.